The former Central Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Bernard Allotey Jacobs, has labeled the Speaker of Parliament's, Alban Bagbin's recent declaration of four vacant seats as a "parliamentary coup d'état."

Speaking on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo on Wednesday, October 23, 2024, Jacobs expressed his belief that this move was part of a scheme by the NDC caucus, in conjunction with the Speaker, to illegitimately seize control that does not rightfully belong to them.

“My interpretation of what happened last week in the declaration of four vacant seats of parliament was an act of parliamentary coup d'état led by Alban Sumana Bagbin. It was an act of coup d'état and it must never happen again.

“You can’t force yourself to take power when it is not yours. If you want Majority, go and do your campaign on the ground, come back to Parliament in 2025, and be the Majority,” he explained.

Mr Jacobs insisted that the NDC should focus on winning the Majority through legitimate electoral processes rather than trying to forcibly take power.

“For me, I sense certain motives behind the declaration. A declaration of a false Majority to come and abolish policies they helped approve and passed, that’s one way of a coup d'état. You don’t live in that kind of Alice Wonderland where you abolish and you expect the president to assent and what happens next is for Parliament to vote no confidence in the presidency.

“It is a sequence of strategies adopted by them and that is my interpretation of what happened at the parliament house...,” he added.